


Muggles, Squibs, and Nitrogen Vacancies

by Anonymous



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 06:13:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6893380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an alternate universe where Hermione is a muggle and Draco is a squib, they still manage to save the world... with science!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Muggles, Squibs, and Nitrogen Vacancies

Hermione Granger awoke like an exponential: slowly and then all at once, heart quickening as she struggled against the rope binding her wrists to each other behind the wooden chair she was seated on and binding her ankles to the legs of the chair.

 

As she struggled, she tried to remember how she had gotten there. The last thing she remembered, she and her friends Adam and Hannah were exploring an abandoned warehouse on Chadwick road. Her mother had told her to be home by sunset. It was almost certainly past sunset.

 

She wondered absently whether Adam and Hannah were okay while she glanced around at what appeared to be a basement. There were small windows near the ceiling of the room, large enough to let light in, but too dirty to see through, and too small to escape out of.

 

She turned to her far right and saw a boy who looked to be about her age, similarly bound. Though he must have been the right age to be in middle school, it was a school day and he was not dressed in the uniform of any middle school in town. Instead, he wore what appeared to be a long sleeved black dress shirt and formal trousers, as if he were at an old-timey funeral.

 

He sported a fading, yellow bruise on his left eye, and there were new bruises forming around his neck.

 

“Hi,” The boy said. “I'm, uh, sorry. I'm pretty sure they're actually after me and you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

 

“Who are you?” Hermione asked, looking around as she twisted her hands back and forth, trying to loosen the rope.

 

She thanked her lucky stars that one of the counsellors at the maths camp she had gone to the previous summer was an amateur escapologist and had held an impromptu lesson on the art. She hadn't quite got the hang of working with handcuffs, and hadn't had much opportunity to practice since then, but rope she could do.

 

“Draco” the boy said. He looked away from her before adding, “Draco Malfoy.”

 

Seriously? Hermione thought to herself. He could have at least come up with a more realistic name.

 

“Who are you?” The boy prompted.

 

Hermione grasped around for a similarly far-fetched moniker.

 

“Ada Lovelace,” Hermione said, just as she managed to slip one loop of the knot around her thumb and started to work it over her knuckles. “Where are we?”

 

“I don't know. I was also unconscious when they brought us here. They've probably taken away your wand, if you had it on you.”

 

“My what?” Hermione asked as she tugged at a second loop of her bindings.

 

“Your wand,” Draco said.

 

“Right, of course, my wand,” Hermione agreed. As crazy as the boy was starting to seem, she realised that he could be of use in her escape plan, so it would not do to antagonise him.

 

“A-ha,” Hermione whispered, as she pulled the second loop over her knuckles, loosening the rope enough to free her hands. 

 

She fully undid the rope around her hands and moved to start untying her ankles. 

 

“Woah, how'd you--” Draco started.

 

“Shh! Please,” Hermione said. Thankfully, the boy got the message and chose to go along with Hermione's plans.

 

“How did you--” he asked again, this time in a whisper. “Was that wand-less magic?”

 

“Look, I don't have--” Hermione started before reminding herself that she was playing along with the crazy. “Okay, whoever tied us up was kind of terrible at it. Just stretch out the rope by pulling back and forth and then work the windings over your hands.”

 

“Hmm,” Draco frowned in his attempt, but did appear to be making progress.

 

The two worked in silence for a few seconds, Draco on the rope around his hands, Hermione on those around her ankles.

 

“Wow,” Draco said, when he managed to get his wrists free. “That's really cool.”

 

Hermione flashed him a smile and helped him get one of his ankles free while he worked on the other.

 

“Okay, there is Floo powder in the pot, but we're going to need a fire,” the boy said after they were both free. “Also, I suspect they're not going to be back for a while, or they would have used a binding spell instead of rope.”

 

“What does that even mean?” Hermione asked, finding her jacket which had been placed to the side. She rummaged for the cheap mobile she usually brought with her on urban exploration outings.

 

“Ah, good, they didn't take my mobile,” she said, taking the item out of her jacket pocket.

 

“What is that?” Draco asked, eyebrows scrunched in what looked to be genuine confusion.

 

“Seriously?” Hermione said, this time out loud. “It's a mobile phone. I'm calling the police.”

 

Draco stopped asking questions, but continued to stare at Hermione in confusion. Hermione ignored him and dialled 999.

 

“London 999,” a serious female voice answered the phone. “What is the exact location of your emergency?”

 

“I'm not sure,” Hermione said. “I think I'm in a basement of a house. I think I can see another house out the window, but can't make it out too clearly.”

 

“Not to worry, we can try to track the cell tower your mobile phone is connected to. What is the nature of your emergency?”

 

“I have been kidnapped. I woke up tied to a chair in this basement, with a crazy boy who's been talking about magic and Floo powder. He was also tied up.”

 

“Oh no, you're a muggle!” Draco said.

 

“And now he's calling me a 'muggle'. Whatever that means.” 

 

“Okay, what's your name?” The emergency line operator asked.

 

“Hermione. Hermione Granger.” 

 

“You said your name was Ada Lovelace,” Draco frowned.

 

Hermione shrugged. 

 

“Okay, Hermione. We have located the cell tower your mobile is connected to. Is there anything else you can tell us that could narrow down our search.”

 

“I don't know. I was by the warehouse on Chadwick road last thing I remember before being made unconscious and brought down here. I don't know if there are people in the house upstairs. The window doesn't open, and it's too small to climb out of anyway.”

 

“Okay, that's good, Hermione, you're doing well,” the voice said encouragingly. “Do you know anything about the people who kidnapped you?” 

 

Hermione looked to the boy. “Do you know anything about the people who kidnapped us?”

 

The boy gave her a startled look, as though he wasn't sure whether to tell her.

 

“This is not the time,” Hermione warned, covering the microphone on her mobile. “What aren't you telling me?”

 

“I... I can't,” Draco said. “I can't let you tell the muggle police. That's going to cause far more... father's going to kill me.”

 

“What, seriously? Those kidnappers are going to kill us!” 

 

“Father wouldn't let that happen,” Draco started to say, before looking dubious. “At least not to me... I think.”

 

“You think?” Hermione raised an eyebrow. “So, you don't know?” 

 

“Well, he is embarrassed about having a squib for a son, so, well, it's not impossible that...”

 

The boy trailed off. Though she didn't understand what a lot of the words the boy had been using meant, Hermione could get enough of the gist to realise that crazy or not, the boy in front of her did not feel loved by his family. The fading bruise on his eye suddenly started to make sense. Despite the urgency of their situation, she decided not to press further.

 

“Draco,” Hermione said, “I understand that you are afraid of what your father will do, but I promise, the police will keep you safe from that. This is exactly their job, and I will make sure that they do it, okay?”

 

Draco frowned and shook his head. “No, you don't understand. The muggle police are out of their league and are going to get themselves killed.”

 

The boy's serious expression gave Hermione pause. She hung up on her police call and turned her attention to the boy.

 

“What do you mean?” She asked.

 

“I don't, wow... I don't know how to say this, but magic is real, and the people upstairs can do magic, really dark magic.”

 

“You realise how crazy that sounds.”

 

Draco looked uncertain. “I suppose. I had never met a muggle—someone who doesn't do magic—before, so I don't really know what to say so you'll believe me.”

 

“You could prove that this so-called magic is real,” Hermione suggested. “Do some magic or something.”

 

“Uh, well, the thing is I'm...” Draco trailed off before taking a breath and starting again. “I'm a squib. It's a disability where you can't do magic.”

 

Hermione stared at him for a few seconds, before turning back to her phone, intent on calling the police again.

 

“No, wait!” Draco said. “Look, I know it sounds ridiculous, but please, Ada, or Hermione, or whatever your name is, you have to believe me.”

 

Hermione raised an eyebrow.

 

Draco looked away from her, as if trying to think of an argument. Suddenly, his eyebrows rose and his mouth formed an 'O', as an idea hit him. “Wait, do you muggles have self-shuffling cards?”

 

“What are those?”

 

“Hang on,” Draco went to where what looked like a black robe was strewn on the floor, and ruffled through it until he found a pack of playing cards.

 

Card tricks? Hermione thought to herself. Still, she reminded herself that she had already decided to give the boy the benefit of doubt. 

 

“My mum got me these a while ago, I hope the magic hasn't worn off yet,” Draco said.

 

Hermione watched as the boy took the cards out and threw them in the air.

 

“Russian whist sort,” Draco commanded.

 

Hermione's jaw dropped when the cards picked themselves up and shuffled themselves, landing in a stack on the ground. She picked them up and flipped through them, to find that they were separated by suit, clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades, and each suit was sorted in order 2 through K, then A.

 

“That's impossible,” Hermione flipped through the cards again and again, failing to find anything out of place about them—they seemed like a normal deck of cards. 

 

Draco smiled. “Hold them on top of your palm.”

 

Hermione did, holding her palm up, with the cards on top.

 

“Shuffle,” Draco said.

 

The cards levitated themselves and quickly shuffled before landing neatly on her palm again.

 

“How?” Hermione asked, browsing through the cards again. They looked to be sorted randomly.

 

“I told you,” Draco said. “Magic is real.”

 

“Does it work if I...” Hermione asked.

 

“Sure,” Draco said.

 

“Shuffle,” Hermione commanded.

 

The cards shuffled, and she checked again to see that they had.

 

She alternately ordered the cards to sort and shuffle a few times. Once, she held her other hand loosely over the deck before giving the command, to check what the deck would do. The cards simply pushed her hand out of the way and fulfilled the command.

 

“That is fascinating,” Hermione mused out loud. “I wonder how the sort function doesn't violate the second law of thermodynamics. And how the shuffle function is getting the permutation. It seems to be achieving true randomness in one shuffle; a riffle takes about seven. Perhaps it's--”

 

“Look, I don't mean to interrupt you, but first I don't understand half the words you're saying, and second, we're still in the basement of some very dark wizards and witches.”

 

“Oh, right!” Hermione said, handing back the cards.

 

“You can keep them,” Draco refused the cards. “Do you believe in magic now?”

 

“Well, I need to think about it and do some testing, but let's say I believe you. How are we going to get out of here? Do you guys have your own police force?”

 

“Well, yes, but,” Draco cringed. “You need magic to call them.”

 

“Are you serious?”

 

“Well, we do have Floo powder, but I would need to ignite the fireplace to use it.”

 

“Hang on... So by 'magic', you mean you need to light a fire?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“So... hypothetically speaking, if I lit a fire in the fireplace for you, could you call the police?” 

 

“If you lit a fire, I could get both of us out of here,” Draco said.

 

“Okay then,” Hermione said, rummaging through her urban exploration bag, and pulling out a torch.

 

“What's that?” Draco asked.

 

“Torch.”

 

“That doesn't look like a torch. And you'd still need something to ignite it.”

 

“Electric torch,” Hermione clarified, turning the torch on and off again.

 

“Whoa. Can you ignite the wood with that?”

 

“Not immediately,” Hermione said, opening up the back end of the torch. “It doesn't give off enough heat. However, despite your people's apparent lack of understanding of technology, the room we are in does have electric mains. So, if I pull the wire out of this torch and use it to short the mains, well, you know...”

 

Hermione did as she told Draco she would, taking care not to touch the bare parts of the wire. Then she held a piece of firewood onto the shorted wire.

 

“So,” Hermione said, as she waited for the wood to light on fire, “After I light this fire, how exactly are we going to get out?”

 

Draco went over to the Floo pot by the fireplace, and showed Hermione the powder inside.

 

“This is Floo powder,” he said. “You use it to travel by tossing it into the fire, stating your destination, and stepping into the flames.”

 

“Hang on, you expect me to step into a fire?” 

 

“It would probably be easiest for you to go to my home, Malfoy Manor,” Draco said, ignoring Hermoine's objection.

 

“Step into a fire? Dear god, why am I even entertaining this?”

 

“Don't worry, I'll go first.”

 

“But... what? This cannot be happening.”

 

“Also, the wood has ignited.” 

 

He was right, so Hermione tossed the blazing wood into the fireplace with the other pieces of firewood.

 

“It is really cool that that worked,” Draco said. “You have to teach me that someday.”

 

“I can't believe I'm doing this, but: get me out of here alive first. Then we can talk.”

 

“Good idea. Now, like I said, three steps: toss a fistful of this powder into the fire, step in, say 'Malfoy Manor'. Speak loudly and clearly. Since it's your first time, you should probably take a breath to speak before stepping in. That way you don't have to breathe in when you're in the flames.”

 

“This is utterly insane.”

 

“Practise it,” Draco recommended. “Breathe in, take a step forward, 'Malfoy Manor'.”

 

Hermione did.

 

Draco smiled. “See you on the other side.”

 

He took a fistful of the powder out of his pouch, and handed the pouch to Hermione. Then, he tossed the powder into the flames. Instantly, the flames turned emerald green. He stepped into them and stated his destination.

 

A moment later, the flames turned back to their usual crackling red and yellow, and Hermione found herself alone in the basement.

 

Later on, she would think back to that time an eleven year old girl with a fistful of powder took a leap of faith and she would realise that this was the turning point after which her life would never be the same.


End file.
